kittens

Thinking ahead

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What shall we do with these babies!

They’re still on the bottom of that old and rotting barrel. As I write this, it’s raining, and I’m afraid rain is getting through the opening the mama is jumping in and out of, and they’re right under it. Where the barrel is is very sheltered, though, so not a lot of rain is reaching the barrel to begin with.

I hope!

I’ve cleared out a corner of the sun room, then used boxes and cat blankets to create a nest, with other stuff placed around it to make it even more cave-like. What I’m hoping to do is get the kittens out of the barrel and move them to the nest. Hopefully, the mama will accept the offering and leave them there. We can even put other things around it to make it more private, so she won’t be disturbed as we go in and out of the sun room.

But that is a job I can’t do without someone more spry and agile to get at the kittens. We can reach to move the boards out and then maybe tip the barrel over, very carefully. It might just fall completely apart once we start moving it.

Is it worth trying? What do you think?

Anyhow…

This morning, the girls were out before I was and took care of feeding the outside cats, then put together two more frames for the raised beds for me. The third one wasn’t done because somehow we missed drilling pilot holes at one end of the 3′ pieces, and they didn’t want to be making noise with the drill while my husband and I were trying to sleep!

I headed out early to go to my mothers, stopping for the mail, then pick up lunch. I went to the Chinese restaurant right next to her place and got myself a full meal, but just onion rings for her. Now that she’s been convinced they are using cat meat and refuses to even consider she might be wrong on that, onion rings are the only thing she’s willing to eat from there! Her loss. The food was delicious, as always.

Before we left, my mother said she had a letter to mail, but she didn’t want to mail it at the local post office. As we were going to get her new glasses, she started talking about the $45 she put in an envelope to pay, but wasn’t sure what she had paid for. I explained to her (again) that it was for her eye test, because it wasn’t completely covered by our province’s Medicare. She said something about the cost of her glasses, as she had written a check for half the cost and I said no, it was just for her eye test, not at all for her glasses. She then commented on not having any receipts, and I reminded her she got two receipts; one for the glasses, one for the eye tests. I had folded up the receipts and put them in the envelope she’d had the cash for the test in. I’d even made sure to show them to her once at home, them back, telling her to put them with her other tax receipts.

She didn’t remember that, and doesn’t know where that envelop is, anymore, but also had no interest in looking. Hhmm.

So, off we went to the town her glasses were in, which is about half way to the city from where she lives. Along with going to the post office, she talked about wanting to go to a grocery store, too. Once at the eye place, my mother got excellent care as they made sure everything was just right.

Then she started asking about the $45, and what was that for?

*sigh*

I’m not sure why my mother didn’t believe me, or what she thought that cash paid for. The lady patiently explained exactly what it was for; it turns out there is just one specific test she had that is not covered. Honestly, I’m still not sure she accepted the explanation.

She was happy with the glasses, though. After getting them to fit just right, she was told to start wearing them tomorrow, when she first gets up, rather than try and get used to a new prescription part way through the day. Since she already uses a walker, there’s a higher risk of falling if she gets dizzy or has depth perception issues.

When it was time to pay, the lady wrote the check out for my mother to sign, and my mother started talking as if they weren’t going to give her a receipt, but she would like one. She was assured they would give her a receipt. Then we made sure she saw the printout, and that it went into the bag with her glasses.

While we were chatting, my mother asked where the post office was, as she couldn’t remember. We got excellent directions. Once we were done, though, she wanted to go to the grocery store, first, since it was so close. As we parked, we saw a Canada Post sign on a pharmacy that shared the parking lot, so we tried going there first. Turns out they just had a postal box, and my mother refuses to use postal boxes anymore. The one outside the post office in her town was stolen, several years ago, so now she things if she puts mail in a post box, it will get stolen.

I didn’t mind stopping at the post office, though, because I was out of antihistamines, and I’m allergic to something out there!

Then it was time to go to the grocery store, but suddenly my mother didn’t actually want to buy anything there, though she did look through the bakery section. Their bakery section is one of the things she looks forward to in that store, as they carry types of bread she can’t get locally. In the end, I did some of my own shopping while she rested in her walker, but as I quickly went around for things on my list, I found her checking out the meat department! 😄 So she did get one thing – just not the thing she came to the store for! I paid for it with my own stuff, so she wouldn’t have to stand in line.

Next, it was off to the post office. She remembered what the building looked like, but the post office hasn’t been in that building for many years. I don’t know what the building is now, but it’s unique enough that it frequently gets used in movies. There have been a few times I’ve come to this town in the summer, and had to drive around blocks closed off and decorated with fake snow and Christmas trees, because another Hallmark movie was being filmed. Even explaining this as we drove past the original building, when we next drove by the old town hall, with similar architecture, she was telling me that was the post office!

I’m glad we got such excellent instructions, because the real post office turned out to be hidden in a strip mall breezeway! So well hidden, after I parked the car, I walked over to see, and discovered the doors where hidden by post boxes. 😄

When I went back for the envelope my mother wanted to mail, I got very specific instructions. My mother has sent mail to Poland (months ago, though she makes it sound like yesterday) that didn’t arrive. When mailing another letter to Poland, the lady behind the counter thought it was to Ukraine, apparently. I honestly don’t see how that could be, but that’s what my mother tells me. She also writes “Polska” on the address, rather than the English “Poland”, and the lady asked what that was.

So now my mother is convinced that the lady at the local post office just throws away her letters. Or that they are being stolen. Or that no one at the post office understand that Polska means Poland.

My instructions were to make sure they knew this was going to Poland, and whether she should write Poland in English rather than Polish.

When I got to the counter, I explained my questions. The lady at the counter even double checked to make sure if having Polska on there was fine, and was assured it was. In the end, I think the questions I made on behalf of my mother made her day!

My mother didn’t even need postage. All that, because she refuses to drop a letter into a postal box!

She was happy with the responses I got, though. But now I’m wondering, what is she going to do the next time she has to mail a letter to Poland?

That was the last of her errands, though, so we made the drive home. I didn’t even get guilted about staying longer after I helped her in. The folks from the seniors centre had some sort of coffe night in the lobby, and it was still going. My mother was happy to kick me out and be able to catch the end of it. 😂

Which is was fine by me – I didn’t have any insulated bags in the car, so I needed to get my few groceries home! I did stop at the hardware store first, though. I wanted to look for the coupling I needed to repair the pipe to the garden tap.

Turns out, the smallest size they had was for a 1 1/4″ pipe. The pipe I need to repair is 1″.

*sigh*

I was really hoping to avoid ordering it online.

Ah, well. Once I got home, I did exactly that. It comes in a 2 pack, so we’ll even have a spare.

That done, I headed outside. After setting up the kitten nest in the sun room, I did a bit of garden tending, then dragged the roll of fence wire over to where the frames were.

I had thought the wire was 4″ squares, but I was wrong. Once I started unrolling it, I could see it was several sizes. All the squares are 6″ long, but there are rows of 5″, 4″ and 3″ spaces.

The roll itself is just over 3″ wide. I decided for the first frame, I would try 5′ long pieces. Three of them will fit along the inside of the frame, with a bit of overlap. Bolt cutters made cutting the wire an easy thing, and I used pliers to bend the cut ends back. Being rolled up for so long, the pieces all have a curve we can take advantage of when attaching them to the sides of the frame.

I didn’t get that far, though. It started to rain while I was working on the last section, so I just put things away to finish tomorrow. Once I see how it looks with 5′ of fence wire, I’ll decide if the next one will get longer or shorter pieces.

For these ones, I plan to cover the fence wire with the black netting we used to protect beds last year, making sure to close up the ends in the process. The cats like to go into the garden beds and just lay on top of my vegetables, so this will at least keep them out! In the future, we’ll have to make a cover sized for the bed the Irish Cobbler potatoes are in right now. I never thought those would need covering! The other potatoes are fine, but the critters seem to really like that one bed! I keep finding kittens in there, but something bigger has been flattening the potato plants. So far, they have been able to recover okay, but there’s only so much abuse they can take! It’s too late to do anything about it this year, but we’ll have to keep that in mind when using the bed next year.

Funny how every year of gardening, I spend much of my time thinking about the next year’s garden! Everything we learn this year will make for a better garden next year.

I hope!

The Re-Farmer

Things I found this morning – and last night!

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Funny how I do my rounds every morning and evening, and I still sometimes find new things!

Though the first thing to share with you is what I found last night!

My daughters heard a ruckus outside, so I went out to check and found this.

There was at least one more racoon that ran off before I could shine a light into the kibble house.

The one trying to claw its way under the roof looks very unhappy!

Speaking of unhappy, while walking around in the outer yard last night, my older daughter twisted her ankle in a dip on the ground, hidden by grass. I keep dropping a lawn mower tire in it, or tripping over it myself, so I went and got a wheelbarrow of soil. While I was doing that, my daughters kicked around in the grass and found three more sunken areas. Once we saw the spacing, we realized what they were from. When we first moved here, there was a truck that was parked there. It belonged to my brother that lives in the quarter section across the road, so he moved it away our first summer here. The low spots are from the tires sinking during the years it sat there! The one tire made a deeper hole, because it was sitting where more spring meltwater would accumulate.

My daughter twisted her ankle bad enough that she’s still limping today. 😢

This morning, as I was checking the garden beds along the chain link fence, I started hearing kitten noises. I knew one of the mamas likely had a litter there, but had yet to hear or see anything until today. It took going all the way around to the back of the pile before I saw two kittens in the grass.

Yes, there are two kittens in the picture! There is a tuxedo hiding under a big burdock leaf. The mama was not happy to see me there!

Of course, I had to take a quick peek and check on the newest babies we found.

In this photo, I could count 7 faces.

The mama was near by and watching me closely, so I just quickly stuck my phone over the opening, snapped a couple of pictures and left.

Yesterday evening, I finally dragged away the broken tree top that fell near where the low raised beds and compost pile are. One of the branches snagged on a squash vine hanging out of the compost ring, so I make sure to check if it was okay this morning. Looks like the damage was very minor, because our mystery squash are doing very well!

There are even female flowers developing! The one vine is quite large, but there are at least 3 more smaller ones in there. It should be interesting to see what they turn out to be!

Though we had rain off and on all day yesterday, it was never more than enough to dampen the grass, so I got the sprinkler going over the squash patch this morning. It also waters the purple corn, so I could probably move that new soaker hose to another bed. While that was running, I took my time checking other things, and ended up pulling crab grass in the bed we grew potatoes and melons in last year – or should I say, tried to! – that still has the old straw mulch over it. After clearing away a bunch of crab grass, I found…

… a remarkably large potato plant was hidden in the grass! This would be an All Blue potato. In the other bed, where the straw was cleared in preparation for building the trellis beds, I uncovered a single potato plant (also pictured above), but it is much, much smaller. The smaller one would be the Briget variety.

Next I checked the high raised bed, where I noticed one of the clips holding the netting at the top was broken and floating in the netting above the beans.

I found some of the ground staples pulled up, too.

Something actually managed to eat more of our bush bean leaves!!!

It couldn’t possibly be a deer that did it. From what I saw while putting the netting and ground staples back, I got the impression that something got in, then panicked a bit while tearing itself out. But what? It’s not like a rabbit could climb up there. We haven’t seen any ground hogs, and I don’t know that they are climbers – plus, I think a ground hog would have done a lot more damage!

Whatever it was, it ate some leaves and left. The plants are still showing flower buds, so it looks like they will survive just fine, and we should be getting at least a few beans this year.

In other things, I finally got a call about my mother’s glasses, so tomorrow I will be picking her up and taking her to pick them up. I hope she’s happy with them. Since I’m going to her town anyhow, that will give me a chance to stop at different hardware store and see if they have the right size coupling in stock. It will be great to repair that pipe and be able to hook the hose up to the garden tap, instead of the house! If it works out and no new cracks appear, I want to see if I can drag a double laundry sink we found in of one of the sheds, and make a vegetable washing station under the garden tap, too. That would be very handy!

But first, we fix the water pipe!

The Re-Farmer

Surprise!

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My daughters and I were outdoors when Rolando Moon appeared. We haven’t seen her for weeks! As we went around the yard, my younger daughter noticed Rolando was growling at something by the outhouse, so she went to investigate. Next to the outhouse are two old rotting barrels. One of them doesn’t have a top, so there’s a piece of sheet metal weighted down with a brick that covers most of the opening.

There was a cat inside!

This was a surprise, and I thought it might be stuck in there, so my daughter move the brick and started to move the metal, only to have the cat burst out and run away.

Not far away, though.

This would be why.

Yup. It’s another litter of kittens! Very, very young ones!

I’ve zoomed into the full size photos and tried to see how many there are. There are at least 6, but there may actually be more!

Oh, my goodness. I just realized that there is another kitten under that board, towards the right! Which means there might be as many as 8 kittens in this litter! This is the largest litter we’ve ever seen.

The mama is one of the more feral tabbies that I noticed a while back, looking ready to give birth any time.

I think. It may actually be another mama. The one in the above photo has stripes. The one I saw today, I thought it was more spotted than striped. I really didn’t get to see her much at all. As I said, she’s one of the more feral mamas.

That is really not a good place for kittens. It’s certainly a very safe place, but with the way it’s covered, rain would be getting in there, and everything’s all hard and dirty.

If the mother were less feral, I’d be making a box nest and working to get the babies out, then setting the box somewhere the mother will find them, but if we do that, she might just abandon them. She would certainly end up moving them somewhere else.

*sigh*

Too many kittens!

The Re-Farmer

So generous! Also, not for the squeamish

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I knew the Cat Lady hoped to swing by to drop off some cat food for us today. Just a drop and run, as it would be on the way to somewhere else. I expected a message from her ahead of time, and was going to open the gate for her, but instead I got a message saying the stuff was at the gate!

So I snagged a daughter, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and went to pick it up.

Wow!!

First up, I’m impressed with how far she was able to get some of those pushed under the gate! Especially that 40lb bag of pellets.

She had mentioned she might have litter pellets, too, but I was not expecting them! There’s the two big bag, like we usually get at Canadian Tire, plus a smaller bag of pellets made from recycled newspaper.

She mentioned leaving Marlee’s favourite cat treats, but I didn’t except to see two crinkle caves for the kittens as well.

I was also not at all expecting canned cat food! I am really appreciating it, because right now, I’m using a lot more than usual for the cats in my room. It allowed me to give the two older kittens more controlled doses of lysine. Their eyes are looking better, but are still quite sticky. This morning, I found Question’s eyes completely stuck shut again (that’s the name the girls have settled on for her, because of the question mark pattern on her back).

Speaking of sticky eyes, the next photo is kinda gross.

There are a lot of tuxedos among the kittens this year, and one of them has a really messed up eye. Not as bad as the kitten we got to the vet – at least not from what we can see so far – but still pretty bad. I did catch him once, but he really panicked and one of my hands got pretty scratched up as he made his escape. Today, I sort of caught him, but didn’t want to freak him out too much, so I gently held him in place and pet him, letting him go before he started to panic.

This is what he looks like.

That inner eyelid is so swollen, I can’t even really see the eyeball, but there’s quite a bit of swelling in there.

I told the cat lady about it, and she said that if we can catch him, to let her know, and she will see what she can do for us.

Like she doesn’t have enough on her plate already!!

She is just so amazing.

The Re-Farmer

Happy and sad kittens

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First, a couple of photos from yesterday evening.

It kept raining off and on yesterday, so it was a little damp when I came out to do my evening rounds, starting with putting food out for the yard cats first. One of the things I do it toss a handful into the two lower shelves of the shelf shelter.

When I put some in the bottom shelf, I hear scrabbling and growling noises! Beep Beep Baby prefers to eat in that bottom shelf, so she started to go for the food, only to be chased away by hissing, snarling and more scrabbling! She tried again, but got chased off again.

The noise was coming from one side where there is a cardboard box, and I just couldn’t see anything. So I stuck my phone in and got this picture.

It was a very terrified kitten!

Also, that box is falling apart completely. 😄

As I distracted the cats away by filling the kibble trays, I could eventually see the kitten through the opening, in the corner where there is a crocheted cat bed.

I am pretty sure this kitten is one of the litter of six that live in the board pile beside the spruce grove, where I spotted these two.

I was able to move a bit closer to get the photo, but I didn’t want to scare them away and didn’t push my luck. In the past, I would put trays of kibble for any kittens in this wood pile, but I’m seeing them by the kibble house so often, I’m leaving things be. Hopefully, they will start hanging out in the sun room with the other kittens.

Today has been another day of on and off rain., and I believe all last night, too. When I came out to feed the cats, I was met with a sad sight. A very wet, very dead kitten in the grass in front of the sun room. There was nothing visible to show why it died. Given its bedraggled fur, I think this is another one that died somewhere else and was brought close to the house.

It is now buried with Keith and the dead kitten that had been brought into the sun room some weeks ago.

This has been quite the year for kitten losses. I’ve no doubt we’ve had as many in previous years. It’s just that this is the first year we’ve actually been finding their remains, or having them brought to us.

At least we have some successes, like the kitten that got adopted when we brought it to the vet. It all sort of balances out.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens

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Just before I went into the sun room this morning, I saw this through the door.

What as funny was watching that one kitten lift its head, then slowly let it flop backwards like that!

I saw the orange babies as well. The first time, I saw one of them nursing on Baby Beep Beep along with a white and grey kitten from another litter. Some time later, I saw this through the door.

The three siblings, all nursing on Baby Beep Beep.

I was sure these were Caramel’s babies. I even saw Caramel yesterday evening. But it’s Baby Beep Beep that I’ve been seeing nursing them.

Well, the main thing it, they’re still safe in the sun room and being mothered!

It took me longer just to get outside this morning. Twice, as soon as I went into the sun room, I spotted a kitten that needed eye washing and was able to catch them. When I was finally able to go all the way through the outer doors, I found a tuxedo on the hand rail by the rose bush. It had one eye mostly closed and just gross with… ick. I was able to catch him, but he was not happy about that and managed to get away. I now have a few new scratches on my hand to show for it!

The indoor kittens are getting incredibly active, and a couple of them have even started going to the door and “asking” to be let out.

Not going to happen!

It’s funny to see them using the regular litter pan instead of the one in baby jail. They are so tiny, if it weren’t for the lower front of the pan, we wouldn’t be able to see them in there at all!

We really need to watch our step around them now. They have a thing for running over to our feet unexpectedly.

Snarly Marley does NOT like the kittens. At all.

I’ve been keeping in touch with the Cat Lady. It looks like her cat that was blocked is now stable after surgery and is coming home with a catheter. She is so amazing. She’s got so much going on and going wrong right now, but she still managed to take advantage of a deal, picked up bags of dry cat food for us and hopes to swing by with them, tomorrow.

I’m so happy we got connected with her!

The Re-Farmer

Unbelievable!

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First, in an alarming way, then in a good way.

First, a photo of something pleasant.

When I finally got outside to do my evening stuff, I was able to pick a bunch of peas and raspberries.

It seems quite a lot of our peas have been “topped” by deer, but they seem to like the leaves, and not the pods.

I wanted to have that photo first, so no one squeamish sees the next photo in the post previews. You are warned!

The first time I started to go outside, I spotted the kitten with the messed up eye. After putting the food out, I was able to snag it and bring it inside for an eye washing.

That eye was looking worse than ever. The swelling was massive, and it looked like the eye was not going to make it.

We decided to call the vet. After talking to them for a bit, they had me come in as an emergency visit. This is how the kitten looked after we got it in the carrier.

That is not good. Not good at all. You can’t actually see in the photo, just how bad the swelling is. Just a great big ball over his cheek bone and partly towards his ear. While we washed the eye, I move the lids around and could see gunk was accumulating under the eyelids, too – not something we had any way to wash out.

By the time I got to the vet, it actually looked better, though all the pink tissue was blood red. The eyeball itself no longer looked cloudy, like in the photo.

I was taken to an examination room immediately. Just before leaving, I messaged the Cat Lady with the above photo, and we chatted for a bit while I waited for the vet. She has seen this before and told me about some medications that worked wonders for her, in just a couple of days. I was feeling better about that, by the time the doctor came in.

Not so much for the Cat Lady, though.

Her cat that is blocked is back in surgery, and he’s either going to make it, or be euthanized, depending on how things go. They’ve already spent thousands of dollars on this cat. I’m assuming they are doing the last ditch surgery of creating a “female” urethra. I honestly would never go that far. There can be so many problems after the surgery, and a severe reduction in quality of life. I don’t know for sure, though. Unfortunately, not only are they dealing with this, but family from out of country are in and they have to put a smile on their faces attend a family gathering. She’s a total mess – and yet she still was able to encourage me about the kitten!

When the vet came in, we talked for awhile and I explained the background on the kitten. This is only the second time I’ve been able to catch him (when I mentioned I hadn’t even had a chance to see if it was male or female, she did check and was mostly sure it’s male). She said the eye was likely related to herpes, and I told her how we’ve been giving the outside cats lysine to help with that. The adults are fine now, but once the kittens start getting weaned and eating solid food (including the mice and birds the mamas bring them), their eyes start getting gummy.

She used a light to look into his eye and confirmed that it’s gone. It’s full of blood and apparently starting to rot inside. All that swelling you can see in the photo? That’s all eyeball. *shudder* We’d be treating it for a while, and then having it removed later. So many of them have red, leaky and stuck eyes, but we can only catch a couple of them, once in a while.

The only way we could treat the kitten would be to bring it inside, of course, but that meant we would be able to control the lysine dose. They weighed him and worked out that he would be getting half a scoop – the scoop that comes with the lysine, not the size I’m using for the outside cats! – mixed into his food, twice a day. For an adult cat, it would have been 1 scoop twice a day. We would have gotten eye drops, too.

Note that I’m speaking in the past tense now.

The vet then took him out to wash his eye with saline solution, cover the eye with gel to keep it from drying out, and give him a slow release antibiotic injection.

Then she came back with him and a handful of medications to take home with him, started to talk to me about it, then asked, “unless you want to adopt him out…?”

???

I wasn’t quite sure if she was serious, but I said yes, of course. That would be a huge help. We already have too many cats in the house (the last I saw this vet, we had 16, but now Decimus and the 6 babies are inside, too).

Then she asked if I wanted to take him home first, or adopt him out now?

It seems one of the techs wanted to take him home. Now? Or Monday?

I was a bit confused, things were coming at me so jumbled. At first I was going to bring him home to treat him over the weekend, then bring him back on Monday, but then she told me to wait and went to talk to the tech again.

The tech was happy to bring him home with her right away.

So that was settled!

I was stunned, but happy.

Then I went to settle the bill. I figured it would be more than I got for the van, just this morning, and had already been checking my bank account to see what I could transfer over out of savings, if necessary. I’d mentioned to the vet that I’d been chatting with the Cat Lady, so when I was at the counter, she asked me if the rescue was covering the bill or was I? I told her the rescue was not involved with this kitten. Then I saw some semi-verbal communication between the vet and the tech that was out of view.

Suddenly I was being told it was okay. It was covered. The tech that adopted the kitten would take care of it, and I was basically – cheerfully! – kicked out. 😂😂

So… yeah.

By the time I left, I was in a bit of a daze. It all happened so quickly! I went in with a messed up kitty, worried about how we were going to pay for vet care and sure the baby was going to loose an eye. I left with the kitten in the best of hands. Who better than someone that works at a vet clinic to take care of it? The only way things could be better is if, by some miracle, the eye recovers. Unlikely, but possible.

It’s just so unbelievable.

The Re-Farmer

So many! Plus an evening in the garden

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While catching up on a few garden things in the cool of the evening, I happened to walk near the covered board pile outside the living room window, where Not-Junk Pile has her litter. I’ve been seeing 3 kittens running around and playing on the tarp, and the tire and tire rim we have on top to keep it weighed down.

I could see Not-Junk Pile lying in the grass, nursing her littles. They noticed me, and three kittens ran off into the brush around the board pile.

Leaving three others behind! They and their mother watched me closely as I walked by, but did not run away.

Six.

She has SIX babies!!!!

I saw them again later, and it was quite hilarious. I had to zoom in from a distance, and this is the clearest photo I could get.

That’s just a whole bowl full of babies in there with her! 😹😹

As I was in and out of the sun room, I spotted the kitten with the messed up eye. It’s looking really swollen – even more than before – around and behind the eye socket. I let the girls know, so they could try and get it and tend to it as best they could, but it ran under the counter shelf, and none of us have spotted it since. I did manage to snag a black and white kitten with a gummed up eye, and one of my daughters was able to wash it clear. There’s a white and grey kitten with an eye stuck closed, too, but I haven’t been able to catch it.

As I was finishing up, I spotted a teeny little tuxedo running around outside the sun room door. I’m not sure that I recognise it.

Speaking of recognizing cats, after I put the kibble out and cats were coming around, I realized I was seeing both Junk Pile and Not-Junk Pile. I tried to move closer to Junk Pile, but honestly, the only way I can tell them apart unless they are literally right next to each other, is from the wounds Not-Junk Pile has behind her ears, from scratching herself. We still haven’t been able to catch her to give her that ear might medication, which is really getting to be a problem. The wounds behind her ears had been healing up, but today they are red and raw again. I did manage to come close enough that she sniffed my fingers, but that’s as close as she’ll let me get to her.

We reached at least 24C/75F today, though the thermometer in the sun room was hitting 30C/86F. For all the severe thunderstorm warnings we were getting, we didn’t even get rain. So I made a point of watering as much of the garden as I could, while doing other stuff.

It’s too early for the water soluble fertilizer I used to make much visible difference, but that bed with the Roma tomatoes is bothering me. They are just not thriving, for all that they are producing tomatoes. That bed has a mulch of shredded paper, because that’s all we had left at the time. It does the job, but isn’t as good as a grass mulch, and we have a nice big pile of grass clippings available right now, so I went ahead and topped up the bed with a few inches of grass clippings around the tomatoes, between the onions, and especially the edge, where the crab grass comes up from under the logs framing the bed – and right on top of the soaker hose that winds its way around the bed, leaving only the connector sticking out. Then I went around and pruned the bottom branches off the tomato plants. I’m hoping the fresh mulch and the pruning will help the tomatoes get healthier.

After that was done, I hooked up the garden hose, then went to look at the new soaker hose I set up and tested in the purple corn bed. I got the soaker hose because it was affordable, but I guess you get what you paid for. It works just fine, except for the connector. Inside the connector was a flat green disc with a small hole in the middle. I figured it was to control the flow of water into the soaker hose, but when I hooked up the water hose, it sprayed from between the threads. With the disc there, there’s just too much water pressure, forcing the water out through the connector. So I tried taking out the disc and tried again, but there is no rubber washer, so it still leaked. A lot. I have extra rubber washers, but when I put one in, I discovered that the connector isn’t as deep as others. With the washer in place, there wasn’t enough thread to screw on the garden hose! The washer is just too thick. It’s fine on every other hose. Just not this one. I did eventually use it without the rubber washer, but not for long. There was just too much water leaking.

I did, however, have an extra female coupling, so while giving the other soaker hose time to give the tomatoes and onions a good watering, I cut off the connector on the new hose and replaced it. The original coupling was at the end of a plastic tube on the outside of the soaker hose. The new coupling has a metal tube that needs to be inserted into the hose, then a worm clamp is tightened to keep it in place and from leaking. Getting that into the soaker hose took awhile, though! It was designed for a half inch hose – which is smaller than the hoses we have, but the clamp makes up for that. The soaker hose opening is narrower than half an inch! Thankfully, the material it’s made of does stretch, and I was able to get it in properly, then clamp it down.

Once the tomato bed was watered, I tested out the new hose with its now connector, and it worked perfectly!

Oh, slight interruption!

My daughter read that tonight was supposed to be a good night to see the Northern lights, and she invited me to go outside and see if they were visible, or if it was too cloudy. It turned out to be too cloudy, but we heard the barking sound of racoons, so we went to check.

We found two young racoons on the cat hour roof. When they saw us, they flattened themselves down as much as possible, and froze! We ended up using the hose to chase them off, but… gosh darn it, they are so flippin’ cute!

Anyhow… where was I?

Ah, yes.

With the new soaker hose working, I decided to set up a sprinkler over the squash patch, so the whole patch can be watered at once. We have oscillating sprinklers we found after moving here – three of them. They work, in that they spray water, but the oscillating part doesn’t work at all on two of them.

Of course, the one that worked was the last one I tested!

Turns out that if it’s set right, it not only waters the entire squash patch, but also the small patch with the drum gourds and zucca melon – and the corn bed! So it got a real good watering this evening!

By the time I used the soaker hoses and sprinkler for a half our each, it was getting too dark to do much more, so it was time to go in, and away from the mosquitoes! We’re still getting predictions for rain tonight, but I’m not expecting it to reach us, so I might be watering some more, in the morning!

I so enjoy being able to work outside. I’d say outside all day if I could! Heck, with the temperatures we’ve been having overnight, I’d happily sleep outside, too. One of these days, we’ll have a mosquito proof gazebo, and I’ll be able to do just that!

The Re-Farmer

It’s been a day of kittens! Plus, van update

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I had a pretty surprise while doing my morning rounds. A couple of the newly opened poppies are very red, instead of mostly white, like all the others!

This is what they are supposed to look like. At least, this is how the Baker Creek website shows them.

Poppy colours were not my only surprise today!

Today has been a day of kittens.

First, when we brought Ghosty’s brother in to wash his eyes, we didn’t put him back outside. Instead, he went into baby jail with Ghosty and Decimus’ four. I ended up giving them wet cat food, as even the littles are starting to eat solid food. When Decimus came in, she sniffed at the stranger, but was far more interested in the wet cat food!

I’ve been sending updates to the Cat Lady, but thinks are still in the air at their place. The cat that got hand, foot and mouth disease while they were away, is now blocked! The vet is trying to save him. So coming out here might take a bit longer!

Later on, my husband told me he was hearing what sounded like a kitten in distress outside his window, so I went to check.

It took some digging, but I did find where it was coming from. A kitten had pushed itself right into the corner of the house. There are a whole bunch of things stored there, but I was able to get it out.

Here’s a slide show for you…

After snuggling it for a while – it’s a young one with very blue eyes – I spotted a mama in the kibble house, so I set it down beside her.

She was not his mama, though, so she soon left, but he stayed there, huddled among the kibble trays.

While I was getting him unstuck, I’d heard meowing from somewhere else nearby, so I went looking to see where it came from. Which is when I spotted Caramel and an orange face peeking at me! I’d put a strong plastic bin against the wall in such a way as to create a shelter. Originally, I even had a box with an old pillow in it, but it wasn’t being used, so I moved it to the cat house, but left the bin. Now I know where Caramel moved her babies to! She only moved them less than 20 ft! Assuming that’s where they’ve been, all this time.

I went inside but kept checking on the baby, who stayed huddled in the kibble house, alone. So I picked it up and cuddled it some more, before putting it on the cat bed in the water bowl shelter, so it would at least have someplace more comfortable to be!

Again, I kept going out to check on the baby, and decided to use my phone’s camera to see the kittens in the bin.

They weren’t there.

But I did hear mewing.

Behind me was the stack of flattened corrugated plastic boxes. They’d fallen over in high winds, but I left them like that, since they formed a sort of shelter. I lifted them up and found two kittens! One orange, one orange and white.

I snuggled them for a bit, then put them all together in the water bowl shelter, since they are clearly all from the same litter.

Then I went into the sun room and found three black and white/tuxedo kittens cuddled in a heap, napping. It’s a hot day today, and there are cats sleeping all over the place! I just had to take a picture, and could see the eye issues. One tuxedo has one eye that’s been gummed shut for days, but we haven’t been able to catch him to clean it. The black and white one had both eyes gummed mostly shut, so I was able to pick it up. I snuggled it for a while and it seemed really calm, so I went ahead and cleaned its eyes. It took quite a while, but the kitten was amazingly patient the entire time! Then, when it could finally open its eyes, it stayed in my arms for a while, just looking around.

Then it climbed up on my shoulders, where I couldn’t reach it anymore! I ended up having to go to the shelf just outside the door and lean over, so it would jump to the top. Then I was able to gently pick it up and put it on the ground. It didn’t even try to run off!

Pinky happened to be there and started showing me just how long he can stretch!

Which actually called to mind something that had me concerned.

I haven’t seen Gooby at all, today.

The last I saw him was yesterday evening, out by the squash patch. He and Pinky started to fight, and my daughter had to break them up.

The last time a cat that I normally see every day suddenly wasn’t around was Pointy Baby. I found him with his head stuck in the chain link fence, and he died that night from his injuries. So now I’m concerned that Gooby is injured or stuck somewhere. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for him!

The three littlest kittens, meanwhile, were staying together in the water bowl shelter!

Meanwhile, the new indoor kitten seems to have already been absorbed into the creche! He was more nervous of the little kittens than they were of him. I have no idea if he and Ghosty remember each other, but they are getting along just fine. Decimus came in and settled to nurse, but only a couple of kittens were interested. The two bigger ones ate their fill of solid food, then wanted out of the cage. They can get out pretty easily, but the littles are figuring it out, too. It just takes them a bit more scrabbling! I ended up with the two older kittens and two younger ones running around. I definitely have to watch the wheels on my office chair when getting up from the computer!

Oh, my goodness! I was wondering why it was so quiet, so I went to check. Decimus is now lying on the floor, outside the cat cage, nursing those four kittens – including the new addition! – while the other two are still in baby jail, playing!

What a good little mama!

So… yeah. This has definitely been a day of kittens!

On a completely different note, I got word back from the garage. It needs a new power steering pressure hose, and will cost just under $270. Which is under budget, but there’s still that noise in the back. I asked him about it and he asked some questions, then said he would check the van again and get back to me. So I hope to hear from him tomorrow. It could be the brake drums, but we haven’t driven the van in months, before I drove it to the garage, and the noise wasn’t there before.

The question is, if there is something that needs major repair, is it worth fixing? The mechanic thought that, at best, he might be able to get $400 for it at the scrap metal dealer, though scrap metal prices have gone up since then. If the repairs end up costing more than $400, we will have to decide if it’s even worth fixing. We really need a second vehicle; my mother’s car is great to have, but we need that van.

Well, we shall see what he tells us, and go from there.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll got check on some kittens and do my evening rounds!

The Re-Farmer

Some cuteness, and an unplanned outing

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First, the cuteness! I came into the sun room and spotted this ball of adorableness.

I sometimes like to add some kibble onto the feed bag stuffed with packing material they like to use as a bed. They have a proper bowl, but they can’t all fit around it. Especially when some of the adults decide to eat from it, too!

The kibble bin was running low. We bought four 9kg and two 11.6kg bags of kibble during our last Costco trip. The kibble bin for the inside cats just got refills, which left the equivalent of less than a bag for the outside cats.

All that, and it’s only July 11!

So I made the trip to the nearest Walmart, at the smaller, nearer city, to pick up more. I ended up buying their last three 11kg bags, then two more 9kg bags.

All the bags were the same price. 🤔

Of course, I took advantage of the outing and got a few more things we needed. A smaller case of wet cat food for the cats in my room and the kittens – I’m now seeing other kittens eating the wet cat food, too! The replacement coupling for the hose I needed. That sort of thing. But I completely forgot to look at shoes! I need a pair of work shoes that are not boots. 😁

Gas prices I saw were pretty high. Passing through the town my mother lives in, they’re at 158.9¢/L, and in the city it was 157.9¢/L. I took a chance and took a different route home, in hopes the prices were still lower in the town we usually go to. Sure enough, the prices are still 149.9¢/L I don’t know why this one town has prices that are so much lower than elsewhere, but I’m not about to complain!

One thing I did before heading out was leave a message at the garage, asking if they’d had a chance to assess what’s going on with our van, yet. It was something they were going to do in between other scheduled jobs. Still no word, though. I hope I hear something soon! As much as I appreciate being able to use my mother’s car – and the working air conditioning! – I much prefer driving the van. Especially when we need to get things like 5 or 6 big bags of cat food!

Of course, it’s entirely possible that noise I was hearing in the back will require more expensive repairs, and we’ll have to decide if it’s worth fixing at all.

Just a few more months of using my new credit card and paying it off every month, and my credit rating should be good enough to apply for financing on a newer van, with an interest rate and payments we can afford.

It’s taking a while, but we’re getting there!

The Re-Farmer